Why We Built This Report and Why It Matters Now

Written By: Tom Chambers, Director Community and Development

If you want to understand why HEUG created the SIS Modernization Pulse Survey, you first have to understand where HEUG came from. 

HEUG began as a PeopleSoft user group before Oracle acquired PeopleSoft. That is not shorthand. It is how our organization started. 

HEUG was founded by higher education institutions that were among the earliest adopters of PeopleSoft’s Financials, Human Resources, and Student Systems. In those early years, HEUG members worked closely with PeopleSoft’s product teams. The community had meaningful influence over the roadmap, and practitioners helped shape the products they used every day. 

When Oracle acquired PeopleSoft in 2005, that relationship entered a new chapter. HEUG continued advocating for higher education institutions and creating a direct connection between practitioners and the teams responsible for the products on which their institutions depended. 

HEUG was, in many ways, a model for what a user group could be. 

Then came 2017. 

During Alliance in Las Vegas, Oracle shared news about the future direction of its higher education products and the pace of investment in Campus Solutions. For many HEUG members, the message was unmistakable. The technology landscape around which our community had formed was changing. 

The announcement caught many people by surprise. It raised difficult questions about product roadmaps, cloud migration, institutional readiness, and HEUG’s own future. 

That moment became a reckoning and the beginning of something new. 

In the years since, HEUG has been doing the quiet, unglamorous work of rebuilding. We have not abandoned what we were. We have expanded into what we have always been beneath the product affiliation: a community of higher education technology practitioners. 

These are people who work at the intersection of business processes and technology. People who care not only about which system their institution uses, but whether that system genuinely serves students, staff, and the institution’s mission. 

Today, HEUG connects more than 40,000 higher education professionals around the world. Our community spans financial systems, human capital management, student success, CRM, connected campus, project management, and more. 

We are building a foundation that we believe will define the next twenty years of this organization and help influence the next twenty years of higher education technology. 

Why This Report, and Why Now? 

Institutions are being asked to make consequential platform decisions while facing constrained budgets, staffing shortages, rapidly evolving AI capabilities, complex governance challenges, and uncertain vendor roadmaps. 

The stakes are rising, but the field still lacks an independent view, led by practitioners, of how institutions are responding. 

No institution should have to make a multimillion-dollar technology decision in the dark. 

The SIS Modernization Pulse Report is an expression of HEUG’s mission to ensure they do not have to. 

We created it because the conversations happening across our community deserved to be documented. These conversations address platform decisions, staffing pressures, AI readiness, vendor relationships, and governance challenges. 

Not by a vendor. 

Not by a consultant with a product to sell. 

Because the most valuable insights rarely come from product demonstrations. They come from practitioners comparing what actually worked, what didn’t, and what they would do differently. 

A total of 174 people representing 131 institutions responded to the survey. HEUG members and non-members alike shared honestly where they are today because they understood that their experiences could help someone else navigate the same terrain more wisely. 

This is the first edition of what we intend to make an annual benchmark. Over time, our goal is to give institutions a clear, longitudinal picture of where the field is moving, which challenges are becoming more urgent, and how their experiences compare with those of their peers. 

What You Can Do With the Report Right Now 

If you are a practitioner navigating a modernization decision, use the benchmarking data to strengthen your internal business case. The staffing findings, platform breakdowns, and governance insights can help turn broad concerns into informed conversations with institutional leadership. 

If you are already a HEUG member, bring the report into your next working group, community discussion, or interest area session. Its seven themes are designed to generate conversation, not simply present findings. Ask where your institution aligns with the broader field and where its experience is different. 

If you are not yet a member, consider the report a preview of what the HEUG community produces throughout the year. Explore the Student Success community at heug.org and check whether your institution is already a HEUG member. If it is, you may be able to join the conversation at no additional cost. 

If you are a technology provider or strategic partner, use the findings to better understand the priorities institutions are navigating. The report offers a clearer picture of where the market needs more responsive products, more transparent partnerships, and better support rather than another sales pitch. 

That is what HEUG has always been, even when it went by a different name: the place where higher education figures out what comes next, together. 

Read the SIS Modernization Pulse Report and tell us where your institution is in its modernization journey. Tell us what we got right, what surprised you, and what we should examine next. 

This report is only the beginning of the conversation.